Meraj Sheykh came up with a Super Raid with a minute on the clock as Dabang Delhi came from behind to secure a memorable win against Tamil Thalaivas. Ajay Thakur finally showed up for a PKL game this season but is 14 points were not enough to earn maximum points for his team.

Captains ensure the first half ends even stevens

Dabang Delhi won the toss and chose the court which meant Tamil Thalaivas would raid first. After the Thalaivas came up with an empty raid in their first attempt, Meraj Sheykh opened the scoring on the day with a raid point for Delhi. Rohit Baliyan’s mistake awarded the first point for Tamil Thalaivas before K Prapanjan put the Thalaivas in the lead with his first raid point of the game. Ravi Dalal’s raid equalled the score at 2-2. After Meraj’s one point, Tamil sent Prapanjan for do or die raid but his failure to score meant that Delhi doubled their lead margin. The Thalaivas, however, brought the score level again coming up with an all important Super Tackle on the Delhi captain. On the very next attempt, Ajay Thakur’s signature running hand touch helped his team to level up the score 5-5. Amit Hooda’s ankle hold sent Baliyan out of the game before a thigh hold from the Delhi sent Prapanjan out of the mat and helped Meraj to rejoin his team. And he proved his value again as he added one more point to the tally to take a narrow one point lead with the score at 7-6.

After two empty raids, Ajay Thakur introduced himself during do or die raid and successfully got his second point on the night. Two successful raids by Delhi’s skipper followed by Baliyan helped his team take a two point lead yet again. But keeping with the trend of the game, Ajay Thakur successfully converted his do or die raid into a point before Meraj was tackled to bring the score level at 9-9 again. Prapanjan failed to score in do or die raid as Viraj Vishnu successfully tackled him and R Sriram who had just been substituted in for Ravi Dalal came up with a two point raid. Before the end of the first half, however, Tamil Thalaivas with only two players tackled Meraj to earn their second Super Tackle of the day. Both the skippers had earned four points for their team in the first half as the teams went in for the break with the scoreboard reading 12-12.

Mehraj Sheykh steals the show with a clutch Super Raid

After two rounds of the empty raids Delhi faced do or die raid but Tamil Thalaivas successfully earned two points from Super Tackle and got the all-important lead. Abolfazal, however, came into the game and showed his potential as he earn one point on his very first raid and after a successful raid by Ajay Thakur the tall Iran star produced a Super Tackle and sent Lee out of the game who had just been introduced in Narwal’s place and the score reached 16-17. The Thalaivas’ defence brilliantly trapped the Delhi skipper in his do or die raid and with Ajay Thakur scoring in his do or die raid the Thalaivas increased the deficit to 3 as the scoreboard read 16-19. After Abolfazl’s bonus point, Ajay Thakur, yet again, scored the point which helped them to maintain the three point lead. But soon, Abolfazl earned two points in one attempt and after yet another Ajay Thakur raid point, only Abolfazl stood in the Delhi half. However, the Iranian was not willing to give up without a fight as he picked up a bonus plus a raid point to level the game 21-21.

But Ajay Thakur and Amit Hooda’s perfect tackle inflicted first all-out of the game in Delhi’s next raid as they grabbed Abolfazl and took a lead of 22-25 in the dying minutes of the game. After one round of empty raids from both the teams Abolfazl secure one point before Ajay Thakur’s two points helped the Thalaivas increase their lead to four points. Just when it looked like Delhi were done for the day their skipper stepped up with two points in a single raid. His counterpart, Thakur, on the other end completed his Super 10 on the night. However, Delhi were given a lifeline when Ashok Palkar got one point and their defence stopped Prapanjan which resulted in the scoreboard reading 27-28 in the Thalaivas’ favour. But Meraj was not going to be denied and with a Super Tackle, that left just Ajay Thakur on the mat, handed his team a two point lead with less than a minute to go. Ajay Thakur got one point back but the Delhi captain came up with an empty raid to secure a thrilling win against the Thalaivas.